"What? Me Worry?"

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Sun, 25 Sep 2005 20:47:39 -0400, Fred Shapiro <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU>
wrote:

>"What? Me worry?" is said to have been adapted for Mad Magazine from an
>early-twentieth-century advertising slogan.  Is anyone able to supply any
>information as to what was the product advertised by the earlier slogan,
>and/or any information as to who on Mad Magazine adapted it?

The most common explanation is that _Mad_ creator Harvey Kurtzman took
both the image of Alfred E. Neuman and the "What, me worry?" catchphrase
from an old ad for a "painless dentist" in Kansas (or perhaps a postcard
featuring such an ad).

-----
Washington Post, Apr 13, 1978, p. B9/1
In issue No. 30, 1956, Mad unveiled its patron saint, Alfred E. Neuman,
that familiar freckle-faced cretin with red hair and a missing tooth.
Although he's now a registered trademark, Neuman actually comes from a
1907 newspaper ad for a Kansas City dentist named Painless Romine. There
was a bandage tied around his head, as if his infamous missing tooth had
just been yanked, and those immortal words were spelled out for all to
see: "What, me worry?" Below that was another line now thoughtfully
excised: "It didn't hurt a bit."
-----
Houston Chronicle, June 24, 2002, p. 1
The face of Alfred E. Neuman, the mascot and soul of Mad magazine, has
been around since at least the mid-1880s - and, astonishingly, with the
"What, Me Worry?" slogan. Drawings of the boy were in ads for a dentist
named Painless Romine in Topeka, Kan., and a Dr. Phillips, who practiced
at 614 Penn St. in Reading, Pa. The boy was not named.
-----
http://www.cjonline.com/stories/022904/ses_alfred.shtml
Topeka Capital-Journal, Feb. 29, 2004
Topeka also can lay claim to the poster boy for Mad magazine -- Alfred
"What -- me worry?" E. Neuman.
A picture of a dentist's advertisement appeared in American Heritage
magazine with an article on lantern slides, and the editor of Mad later
admitted that his cover boy originated with that ad, which dated back to
1910.
"Actually, there was no Painless Romine. Rather, he was a trademark used
by itinerant dentists on renting a dental parlor first located at 704 and
later 734 Kansas Ave., upstairs. Silver fillings, 50 cents; dentures,
$4.50. All work guaranteed for 20 years," states "A Century of Healing
Arts," Bulletin No. 57 of the Shawnee County Historical Society.
-----

The last article has images for "Painless Romine" ads from the Shawnee
County Historical Society:

http://cjonline.com/photo_pages/022904/15596.shtml

Those ads say "It didn't hurt a bit", but not "What me worry".
(Newspaperarchive has ads in the Oshkosh, Wisc. _Daily Northwestern_ for
Painless Romine in July 1910, featuring the gap-toothed kid but no
catchphrase.) More on "Painless Rom(a)ine" here:

http://www.kshs.org/portraits/romaine_painless.htm

FWIW, the Wikipedia article on _Mad_ links to an image of a "rare
uncopyrighted image" of a Neumanesque figure on a postcard "from the late
50's to around 1960", with the caption "Me Worry?":

http://community.webshots.com/photo/304039856/304041768aZxySa

Since the postcard probably postdates Neuman's first appearance in 1956,
this doesn't really help establish if the catchphrase was associated with
the gap-toothed boy in the pre-_Mad_ era.


--Ben Zimmer